JAF Team Expansion and Modding Details

We have 2 pieces of great news for you today. So lets get right to it!!

Chris Camfield is joining the Flashback Team

We are super happy to be able to welcome Chris Camfield to the Jagged Alliance: Flashback team.

Chris has worked on the implementation and design of several Jagged Alliance titles and ended up as lead designer on Jagged Alliance 3 that sadly was never released.

He will be joining the team as an advisor while keeping his day job at XMG Studios. Chris’ role will be to help us on essential pieces of implementation knowledge.

WHY were things implemented in a certain way in JA2. Not only HOW. The how could be deducted by most programmers by looking at the open sources.

Understanding the core mechanisms and how they were designed to fit together is essential knowledge to hitting the right balance once we add factions, better AI and other potential improvements/changes to the mechanics.

Establishment of Modding Advisory Team

In addition we are announcing having established a modding advisory and co-design team.

Currently this team includes R@S, creator of the Blue Sun Mod for 7.62 - High Calibre and DepressivesBrot from the 1.13-Crew.

We are also in contact with additional high profile modders to expand the advisory team even more.

Their role will be to work with us to identify essential modding hooks, directory structure definitions, design the templates for modding files and some proof of concept tests.

Having these great modders on board gives us the ability to not fumble the ball on mod support, and will make it easier for everyone to later potentially port their existing mods.

Details on Modding Support

Modding is a wonderful thing and has kept Jagged Alliance 2 alive for many many years. It is also something that takes time to implement right.

If we do not hit some of the higher stretch goals, then we can still support basic modding and hope for adding more options down the road.

Together with the modding advisory team we will prioritize the modding capabilities, that we from initial feedback have grouped into 3 areas.

1) Tweaking of configurationsFor example being able to go into xml files to turn on/off line of sight via a boolean, or change the base movement cost per terrain.

2) Adding additional contentHaving the ability to add a new mercenary, a new weapon or that “used condom” that you’ve always thought missing as a trash item.

3) Adding additional featuresCoding new functionality like wind direction having influence on accuracy while shooting or alternatively altering existing calculations for damage models.

Exactly what is going to be moddable is something that is decided upon during detailed design and ongoing through development with the help of the modding-community.

Our initial thoughts are that we are able to support the first two options here with the minimum budget of our Kickstarter-target. This doesn’t mean the third option is skipped right away. If there’s some spare time in the end, we’ll take care of it as well or will try to introduce this option after the release of the game. In addition to that we are also in talks with other modders who wrote awesome tools for other games and as they will have access to the Alpha version of the game, they will be able to start writing their tools if they feel there’s need to do so.

We have to see how far we can push this with Kickstarter and our own money. Right now, we have to be a bit selective as we don’t know where we will end up yet. This also means that functionalities that have not been planned will drain resources from other parts of the game, and this is not our intention, as we want to deliver a game worth the name Jagged Alliance.

We hope you understand this point, because most of us have been part of a modding community at one point or another, it's important to us! And we will give our best to support it wherever we can and with whatever we can.

Comments

I am a bit worried if we manage to reach our target though... I have increased my pledge, forwarded and shared the project to a lot of fans... By the sum of D1 (almost 1k), I thought we'd hit a million...

@ThomasN - yeah. Its been a fine balance of trying to find a way to pledge for a minimum goal, hope for hitting some stretch goals to make things more awesomesauce in content - while not shooting us in the foot. End of the day we need to deliver on our promises.

Let's just get this funded and see where it goes. I'm sorry that you don't have 600k already but you are neither a company of gaming gods (see: inxile) nor are pitching an "in" game like currently a sandbox something with pixel art (see: stonehearth). I'm hoping this goes into the direction where xenonauts goes (see: hardcore) and at the same time with numerous options for dumbing it down for the noobs, which would be the holy grail.

(Thomas here) - and yeah. There is definitely a cultural thing about excitement. We tend to be much more quiet and to the point than e.g. an American used car salesman (no offense to anyone here - haha)

We would not have been doing this project if we were not excited about it - its one of the 3 games that have defined an entire genre (Fallout, XCom, JA) for me, and being able to work on your own heritage is absurd. Dream come true.

One thing that might be the difference as well is, that for us this is business as well. I run a game studio, have to pay salaries, make budgets, calculate risks and all those boring details of a business.

And I'd be much more excited and jumping around if we were at $600k-700k right now :-D

Lastly the JAF team and I have now worked 6-7 hours straight for 12+ hours a day including weekends to prepare this Kickstarter.

Hello, my name is Javier, I am an artist at FC and American. Want to alleviate the concerns about the English language, first the office language is English. We have Danes,Swedes and a Ukrainian so we have communicate in English. Second, judging from experience, a lot of Scandinavians I've met have a better grasp of the English language then my fellow countrymen.:) Thirdly I'm an avid reader so I feel comfortable enough with the English language to be able to help with the proof reading. Lastly I also speak Spanish and would love a crack at doing Fidel's voice work :)

to be honest guys, i believe its essential for JA:F to have native modding support for everything. Its the only way that your game will survive the test of time and reach a cult status like 1.13 and BSM did. I know there are quite a few of us that will want fully customized attachments like in 1.13 and BSM and from my experience, they games that live the longest are the games that have the best relationships with their modding community (ARMA, Skyrim, etc.)

@JayM yep I know a few Danes with great sense of humor :) What I do say about the language barrier is perhaps their enthusiasm doesn't always show through. I'm sure they're super psyched about this project but whether culturally or via translation (to me) it doesn't really come across in their posts... (not that they need to start adding more exclamation marks, it's just slightly flat)

I am not saying I want something uber realistic, but you "need" at least normal ammo HS and AP. Only one type would be pretty boring. And different weapons need different ammo (5.56 9mm and so on).
Where I agree is that we don't need a hundred different weapons ^^

@daryl: I think from the past discussions here both FC and many backers made it clear that we all rather have a fun game with a good story and memorable character interaction than a hardcore strategic simulation. I think even Chris Camfield said as much in an old interview. So I wouldn't worry too much about the game becoming too complex. In the worst case, there can be options as to how much mirco-managment, realism etc you want to have.

As for English being FCs second language – I understand your concern but I trust that they are professional enough to get professional people (mainly native English-speakers) to do the voice acting, proof-reading etc.

Humour is something very culturally specific anyway. It is impossible to please everyone. A joke an Englishmen finds hilarious leaves an Italian completely unfazed. Some people think Monty Python is brilliant, others simply don't get what's funny about them. And Danes usually have a good sense of humour anyway. I would worry much much more if FC were Germans ;)

@TheRealCuran I am with you on that matter.
Mostly everything should be configurable. At the beginning of the game, not per file.
Or if per file make the standard the not crunching one. Those of us (me included) who want more are those who can edit the file, but in the program before the game starts would be nice.
Make it an easy medium and hardcore mode AND one self configure mode. On the number crunching side. The game difficulty should be another setting altogether.

Superbacker

@Daryl I can understand the concern about overcomplexity, but I did not like the simplification of Xcom EU. It was a fun turnbased action game, but all the missing management aspects left me still wanting a real Xcom remake. Which is why I am eagarly awaiting Xenonauts. I want base management. I want to have to worry about wasting ammo, etc... I don't want it overcomplex and detailed, but there is a good balance that can be made. The old Xcom and Jagged Alliance games had a good balance in my opinion. If JA FB can duplicate that balance and add in base building, I will be happy. If they go the way of Xcom EU and simplify it into a mainstream action game, I will be sad and regret having backed the project. Big publishers can be found to fund such games for a mainstream audience. Kickstarter allows companies to get funding for more niche games like a true JA2 remake.

I do agree that the writing is very important and is something I would like some more details from Full Control about concerning how it will be handled.

@Daryl Surat: The problem is, that there are people who like to do the "number crunching". The best solution (IMHO) would be, to have the level of detail you need to manage configurable. Though that would add some additional coding burden, it would allow new players (or people without a penchant for calculating the best possible solution by stats) to tone the micromanagement level down a bit, while hardcore players could enjoy the demand, the game places upon them. If that's not possible, I'd be fine with a balance leaning towards the micromanagement side (this is a Jagged Alliance, after all).

Although I am a backer, I went back and forth on backing this project for 8 days before pledging. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I am concerned that there is a drive among both the JA mod community and the Flashback developer team alike to add significant complexity to systems that were already fairly complex in the first place. Several types of guns (yet systems that reward your merc for sticking with just one), five different bullet types, several types of explosives, plus you have to consider the condition and customization state of each individual gun AND exactly how many bullets are being carried by each person. AND this will have to be done for each and every merc in each and every zone, such that you will have to outfit and equip them accordingly. Plus there is the added matter of movement and action points, standing vs kneeling vs prone, elevation, and now you are talking about factoring in for wind as well.

Now that you have Chris on the team, it is good that someone is there who can hopefully take a step back and ask WHY the systems are in place, and why they are implemented the way they were. I know there is an audience for the "grognard" complexity, but the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a massive success because they were willing to step back and say "well, how much strategic gameplay value is added by making the player micromanage individual clips and footsteps? Are we only doing this because that's how the original XCOM did it?" I would like for similar questions to be considered during the creation of JA: Flashback.

In EU's case, they replaced the entire AP, inventory, and base management systems such that you still made the same tactical-level decisions only without the number-crunching tedium. I know full well that attempts to "modernize" Jagged Alliance have to date all ended VERY badly, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a worthwhile cause. The question the team needs to ask is "are we making this game for diehard Jagged Alliance fans only?" Because while I'm a longtime enough fan to own the original JA games, the later JA2 installments like Unfinished Business and Wildfire became too much for me.

But that's all not as important as my second concern. There's been a lot of focus and thought put into systems and the like, but what makes Jagged Alliance stand out is the writing. This is the biggest unknown about Flashback. Can Full Control write character-based games based around interplay, and create memorable characters? Or is the real reason this game is a prequel because that enables you to reuse all the existing characters from the previous games (along with maybe portraits and general voice styles)? Nothing in Full Control's portfolio has suggested much characterization in the past games, and it's not like Space Hulk is going to have much of a tonal similarity to Jagged Alliance. Also, given the studio's location, is English the second language for those who will be writing this? Is the reason we haven't seen a dedicated update regarding writing other than general "we want to bring back the humor" statements because it hasn't been thought about much? We've heard much about whether a fatigue system based on your inventory carry weight should be implemented and if it will tie into your "I can carry things" skill tree, but the only thing we've seen to kind of convey the attempted tone is a Baldur's Gate-esque attack hamster.

Again, I am already backing the project, but I had to think about it for a long time. There are 2 weeks remaining with about 60% of the funding still to go, so perhaps there are a lot of other turn-based strategy gamers that feel some hesitation towards this.